Although it is quite irrelevant to LKML (you may want to visit www.vmware.com/community/index.jspa and ask there...), you can connect guest's serial port also to Unix socket - and in such situation you need virtual serial port driver only if 'host - application' does not know how to use /dev/tty* (for unix socket <-> /dev/ptyp* app look at http://platan.vc.cvut.cz/ftp/pub/vmware/serpipe.tar.gz). Petr